The questioning of the traditional rules of photographic exhibition, which blows up concepts such as uniqueness, order or narrative, according to the heterodox and oblique gaze of Cristina de Middel. The succession of portraits of young people at street level signed by Miguel Trillo, which become a fresco of the new urban culture in various Asian cities. Or the unexpected games of tensions in seemingly banal urban settings revealed by Ricardo Cases' shrewdly observant camera.
They are three very different, and equally fruitful, conceptions of current photographic creation that can now be seen at the Center del Carme Cultura Contemporània (CCCC) in Valencia. “What is not known cannot be appreciated or valued by the public. For this reason, one of our purposes at the Center del Carme is to reinforce this opening of paths that makes it possible for people to discover current artistic languages”, explains José Luis Pérez Pont, director of the Consorci de Museus and the CCCC.
Cristina de Middel (Alicante, 1975), who is the 2017 National Photography Award and also the first Spanish to chair the prestigious Magnum Agency, shows in "Etcétera!", an exhibition in two parts that can be seen in the Carlos Pérez room, a critical discourse that goes beyond the conception of photography as a way of apprehending reality, to –as the curator of the exhibition, Rafael Doctor points out– let it “manifest itself through the cracks of time, its contradictions , of their incomprehensible ways of being and being”.
In the first part, curated by Doctor, the images come together in a large mural that configures a great work that is at the same time a cabinet of other works; an amalgam where the part and the whole are naturally combined. As a counterpoint, in her new photographic series "Gentlemen's Club", the artist analyzes female prostitution through clients from various parts of the world.
The women –who, inevitably, tend to be the protagonists– are, this time, invisible; Surprisingly, this serves to reveal the residue of a society with a strong misogynistic and patriarchal heritage.
"Etc!" reflects the evolution of an artistic work that does not stop growing. As Middel explains, “I wanted to visualize my own creative backstage and put into practice an idea that I have repeated endlessly: that photos are like words in a sentence, and each one carries meaning to the context in which it is used.”
The exhibition thus becomes a glossary of "visual words" that offers a reflection on repetition and overproduction, as well as a questioning of the concept of unique work on which the art market is based.
"AsiaTown", an exhibition curated by Sema d'Acosta, includes the work of Miguel Trillo (Cádiz, 1953) in Asia in the first decades of the 21st century. Room 1 of the CCCC brings together portraits of young people taken in different places, from Oceania to the Persian Gulf, which reflect an urban culture with aesthetic parameters globally expanded through smartphones and social networks.
For Trillo, who in the early eighties took photographs in the nightlife of La Movida, these works reflect his fascination for what he calls the "visual slide that Japanese or South Korean youth culture has meant for the rest of the Asian continent."
They are portraits that capture the effervescent need to manifest itself through the physical aspect. The clothing becomes a second skin that condenses a vital attitude. The camera reveals that "the young man is a spring by nature", as the artist himself affirms. His mission is precisely to capture, through images, "some pumps that want to flood everything, because we live in times of iconic overflows."
In room 2, “El ficus del Parterre”, an exhibition curated by Pablo Brezo, we can see the result of ten years of photographic work focused on the representation of the Levante landscape that goes from the coast to rural environments.
Ricardo Cases's (Orihuela, 1971) desire to explore the everyday gives rise to a series such as the one that gives the exhibition its title, which condenses the historical tension generated by more than forty years of coexistence between the largest and oldest tree in the city and a gas station located a few meters away.
Cases' camera manages to resignify places of little prestige, which now become documentary chronicles with a powerful imagery. The exhibition includes series with titles that evoke fragments of everyday life, such as "Ornamental citrus harvesting in Torrefiel" or "Gèneres de punt La Torre"; and also an additional collection of photos that function as "hinges" between those works.
In short, three different views, ranging from visual polyphony to a meticulous look at the ordinary, and which show the artistic effervescence of these creators. As Pérez Pont explains, now we have the opportunity to review the work of "a triad of top-level photographers who offer us their personal visions of the current world, youth, art and everyday life."
